


Metamorphosis and the pain it brings

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: The Order (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s2e06 The Commons Part 2, Gen, Missing Scene, Naked Cuddling, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Pack Dynamics, Pack Family, Platonic Cuddling, Protectiveness, Team as Family, Touch-Starved, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25358119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: "Apology accepted," Vera said and she fixed Xavier with a steely-eyed stare, nostrils flared, eyes narrowed, mouth pressed into a hard line but her face as still and cold as stone. It was not an expression Hamish expected, especially not from her, but the following words made his blood run cold. "Now let my disciple go."As Xavier reluctantly walked off, shaking his head and muttering under his breath, Hamish was suddenly aware that he had no idea where Jack was, and the tense look on Vera's face didn't make it any better. Tundra clawed at his insides, made a panic bloom within his chest, his breath caught in his throat, red blotches of werewolf fury forming behind his eyes. "Where is Jack?"
Relationships: Hamish Duke & Jack Morton
Comments: 2
Kudos: 93





	Metamorphosis and the pain it brings

**Author's Note:**

> This was a little bit self-indulgent, but there was a scene of Hamish asking 'where's Jack?' in the show and that instantly cuts to Jack and Vera in the barn with Jack restored. Like, as IF Hamish wouldn't demand to see Jack. There are so many missing scenes in the show, which is great on one hand because it leaves so much that us devoted fans can write about, but it sucks because we get to miss out on so many canon interactions! You know what I mean?? This is my second missing scene fic for this fandom, and that's two out of three! That's gotta mean something! Anyway, what those people did to Jack was crazy fucked up and I had to write about afterwards with someone who cares about him, and I'm glad that Hamish was there. But thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy it x

Hamish instantly knew that something was wrong with Jack by the severity of Vera’s face as she demanded his return. Hamish hadn’t been too worried beforehand, but now, as he watched her jaw twitch with nervous anticipation and the grave expression she wore, he knew that maybe he had every right to be worried. About Jack, especially. That stupid boy could never keep himself out of trouble.

Following Orbin, he let Vera take the lead towards the old, dilapidated barn in the middle of nowhere with the rotting wooden panels and chipped, faded paint. Unassuming, non-threatening. Just a boring old barn surrounded by overgrown grass and dying wheat fields. There was no real reason for Vera to be charging towards it, trying not to seem too eager, but the way her coattails flew out behind her spoke differently.

Tundra snarled within him as unease settled across his shoulders like a weighted blanket. 

Vera paused at the barn doors, looking sickly. Hamish came to a stop before her, and she looked at him with eyes that held the sins of the world. “Hamish,” she said, an odd moment of informality, of familiarity. “I must warn you… it’s a truly terrible sight to behold. It is unusually severe a punishment for an outsider, but… well. There is nothing that can be done about it now, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t transform into a very angry wolf and tear this place apart in retaliation, especially after we just agreed to an alliance. I doubt that will go over well.”

All of a sudden, the ground was falling out from underneath him, and Hamish felt two sets of heartbeats hammer boldly in his chest as a cold wave flowed through him. “Grand Magus,” he tried to keep his words even. “I can make you no such promise.”

Vera sighed, but it was heavier than usual, less exasperated. “I doubted that you would. But, between you and me? I wouldn't make that promise either."

She swung the barn doors open with a flick of her wrist and she disappeared within the darkened interior. Hamish stood outside, too afraid to enter. If Vera was warning him to control his reaction, claiming that she wouldn’t make the promise if she were in his shoes… the outcome couldn’t be good. If something had happened to Jack while Hamish was too busy doing other things to protect him as a good leader should…

Ultimately, it wasn’t his choice. Tundra urged him on like a massive, heavy, clawed hand on his back shoving him forward, and before he knew it, he was crossing the threshold of the wide double doors of the barn to stand beside Vera in the hay and the dirt.

A plank of wood was resting against a table, almost fully upright, and on it was a creature made of vines and bark and twisted, gnarled roots with branches stretching upwards like fingers reaching for the sky, and this wooden, mossy creature wore Jack’s face, skin tinted with chlorophyll and scaled with slowly spreading bark across his face and neck, sticky sap coating the spaces between. His eyes were closed, but green tears slipped from the corners of his eyes and down his cheeks. He seemed bound to the board, like the wood that surrounded him had grown into it.

“Vera…” Hamish said slowly. He could hear growling, and he wasn’t sure if it was him or Tundra. “Tell me this isn’t…”

“It’s exactly what you think it is,” Vera replied, voice strained. “I never said that it would be an easy thing to see. Or to explain.”

“What did they _do_ to him?”

“It’s an ancient ritual. A punishment,” Vera took slow steps forward as if she could not bear to look away but wouldn’t dare get close. “Although, I suspect that this was to… how to put this lightly. I demanded that I be the one to kill him, hoping that I could wheedle my way out of it. But that meant they could not take their revenge themselves. I suppose this was their way of prolonging his suffering, knowing that they wouldn’t be the ones to make him pay for the death of their comrade,” she made a face.

Hamish looked up at the thing that once was Jack. “That’s barbaric, Vera.”

“For once, you and I are of the same mindset,” Vera sounded bitter and Hamish couldn’t blame her. 

He took a step forward. He, too, was afraid to get too close. He felt sick just looking at Jack, or, well, the tree that wore Jack’s face. There was hardly enough left of him to call him Jack. “Why can’t we get him out of there?” Hamish rose a hand tentatively, but he didn’t get very far.

“There’s nothing to get him out of,” Vera snapped. But she looked at the expression on his face, and it must have been something horrible because her next words were said softer. She waved her hand at the tree. “That _is_ Jack. They didn’t _put_ him in anything. They _mutated_ him into… this. It’s a thing in their culture. When one of them dies, they’re turned into a piece of nature, and they can still contribute to society. We have to get the antidote to undo whatever they did to him.”

Hamish watched him silently. He saw Jack’s eyes fluttering beneath his eyelids, and every now and then, a human part of his face would twitch. He rose his hand, and when he wasn’t stopped by Vera, he placed it gently against Jack’s side. It felt just like a normal tree would, but it undulated under his palm. There was a faint warmth too it, like blood flow. “Do you think he can hear us?”

“I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never encountered anything like this before,” Vera said. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

Gulping, Hamish ran his hand across Jack’s torso, feeling the rough, shifting bark under his hands, watching Jack’s still, sleeping face for any reaction. He didn’t like that he didn’t receive any. “Jack?” he broke the silence. “Jack? Can you hear me?”

Much too slowly, Jack’s eyes opened, and they were a startling crimson colour, streaked with black veins. He blinked, lethargically, and glanced around the room, meeting Vera and Hamish's gaze with only a hint of recognition. “Hi,” he said, voice dream-like and raspy.

“Are you alright?” Hamish asked, fearing the answer. How the hell could he possibly be alright? He had been turned into a tree, for gods sakes. Nothing about this situation as alright.

Jack frowned like the words were foreign. “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know.”

Vera stepped forward, and Jack’s eyes tracked her wearily. “Are you in pain?” Hamish asked

“I don’t think so,” he frowned. “It hurt for a long time before. I can’t really feel it anymore. You get used to it after a while."

“How long have you been like this?” Vera demanded, and Jack flinched, shock fluttering across his features and the twigs that pointed upwards twisting together in agitation.

“I don’t know,” he said. “A few hours, maybe. Before noon. You were supposed to kill me at noon.”

Vera didn’t comment. Hamish filled in the silence by stepping directly in front of Jack and taking up his field of vision. “What happened to Silverback? Do you still feel him?”

Jack’s eyes narrowed as though he were thinking long and hard about how to answer. “He’s here. I feel him. But he’s… sleeping. Dormant.”

“Uh-huh,” Vera looked suspicious. “And do you feel like you want to sleep?”

Blinking, Jack nodded, and the bark around his neck flared and expanded with the motion. “Yeah. Sleep sounds nice. I’d like that.”

“Don’t go to sleep!” Vera and Hamish both shouted at the same time, thrusting their hands out to touch Jack’s side, trying to get his attention. 

Slowly, Jack’s eyes blinked open again, and he nodded with a stiffened neck. “Yes, Grand Magus.”

“Hang on,” Hamish said. “We said the exact same thing, and I’m your leader, but you’ll follow her orders and not mine?”

He had a distinct impression that Jack was shrugging, though there was only the faint movement of bark and branches around his neck. “She’s scarier than you are.”

“Alright, enough of this nonsense,” Vera muttered, hiding a faint smile as she backed away towards the entrance of the barn. “I have a spell to reverse the process, but we need the antidote to entirely erase it. You stay here.”

Having no need to argue, Hamish occupied himself with making sure Jack remained as relaxed and comfortable as possible, considering he was slowly and torturously being transformed into a magical tree. “How did this happen, Jack?”

“I accidentally killed one of their friends trying to get our stuff back,” Jack said. "I tried to tell them that I didn’t mean it, but they didn’t care. I still needed to be punished.”

“You didn’t fight back?”

“Vera asked me not to. I would have killed the dude I was bound to. It would have been messy.”

Hamish ran his fingers down one of the vines that snaked across Jack’s side. “Why did you let them take you, Jack? I thought you would have been the last one to break like that.”

“Because they were hurting Alyssa,” Jack said, and Hamish was immediately aware that he hadn’t seen Alyssa the entire time he had been here. “I wouldn't let her have any more of that purple stuff, and they were trying to use her to get to me. It was hurting her to be away from it,” his frown deepened. “Don’t drink the purple stuff.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Hamish couldn’t help but laugh. Even like this, forcibly transformed into a tree by a hive-mind of beings who had tortured him and punished him for a simple accident, Jack was still so worried about everyone else other than himself. “But don’t worry, alright? Vera is going to fix you, and I’ll take you home where you can rest. I’m sure Randall will dote on you for years to come, and even Lilith will probably be nice to you for a bit.”

Jack met his eyes, and there was something so unfathomably sad within them that Hamish found himself drowning in it. “I’m sorry that I made you worry. I always make you worry. Too much.”

Tutting, Hamish reached up and ran his hand through Jack’s hair, and it took him a short moment before he realized he had done it. That kind of contact was just so familiar between him and Randall and Lilith that it never even occurred to him that he had never breached that same kind of contact with Jack yet. Despite its strangeness, Jack leant into the touch and a purr formed in the back of his throat. Hamish made the decision not to comment on it and just passed it off as Silverback slowly waking up from his deep sleep. “Don’t say things like that. I’m the leader. It’s my _job_ to worry. If I don’t worry about you, who else is going to do it? Certainly not you. Considering you sacrifice yourself for anyone with a heartbeat.”

“What can I say?” Even like this, Jack could still muster a joke. “It’s my one redeeming quality.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Hamish said as he gently combed his fingers through Jack’s hair. “I think you’ve got lots of redeeming qualities and good attributes. But that’s just me, I suppose. I’m not a fan of the way you manage to get hurt so often, but I doubt you’d agree.”

The barn doors opened again and Vera returned from outside, an open book in her hand and an incantation on her lips. “Hamish,” she announced. “I’ve got it, but I must warn you, it isn’t going to be pretty. It’s going to hurt. A lot. But I need you to stay with him until they finish mixing the antidote so he isn't alone during it. Can you do that?” Hamish nodded. “And Jack? Do you think you’ll be able to handle it?”

“I guess so,” Jack said. “It’s not like I have much of a choice.”

Nodding, Vera took a deep breath and thrust her hand out towards Jack, fingers twisting and a spell slipping through her lips like smooth honey, and all of a sudden, it was as if the world exploded as Jack reared back against the wooden board and screamed like the devil was chasing him.

Hamish actually flinched at the sound of it, and he watched, painfully slowly, as the bark started to slough away and was replaced by tissue and flesh, the moss slopping onto the ground the gnarled roots untwisting and forming body parts. Jack’s arms, held up by his head, fell back to his side, and when he collapsed forwards, no longer connected to the board, Hamish was there to catch him, and he lowered them both to the ground where Jack curled up on the dirty floor with his head on Hamish’s lap, writhing and screaming making broken, aborted sounds.

He was nude, but Hamish didn’t mind. He’s seen Jack naked many times in the short span they’d known each other. Vera, on the other hand, turned away to block the scene with her hair and retreated from the barn. “I trust that he’ll be safe in your care?”

Tundra growled, something fierce and protective in his chest, and he felt his fangs push outwards, the room bathed in blue. “I’ve got him,” he said, and he probably sounded wild and dangerous, but he didn’t care. He wanted her to know. Wanted her to go out and tell those hive-mind lunatics that he was more than willing to tear them apart piece by bloodied piece.

“Don’t touch the purple stuff,” Jack mumbled after her, and soon enough the doors were slamming shut again and it was just Hamish and Jack alone in the barn.

Jack shivered across his lap as his fingers shrunk down from long, spindly branches and his bottom half split from the trunk it had become and into two separate legs. His skin still had a bark-like quality, steaked with chlorophyll, but his eyes were returning to their familiar blue and not that unnatural red, which was a relief. “Are you alright?” Hamish asked, placing a hand over his chest. He could feel Jack’s heartbeat now, strong and fast, and underneath it, Tundra could feel Silverback, slowly waking up from his forced deep slumber. 

“No,” Jack groaned as a vine untwisted around his waist. “But I guess I will be.”

His eyes were glazed, and his breathing was shallow and fast. Eventually, he stopped screaming, stopped making pained sounds and just rested his weight against Hamish and trembled, his head in his lap, Hamish’s hands in his hair. Jack pressed further into the touch, making deep, keening sounds in the back of his throat. He knew that he had to mention something about this to Randall and Lilith when they got back. Jack would kill him, but they needed to know…

Hamish wrapped his arm around Jack’s chest, holding him close and letting him heal from whatever the fuck just happened, lost in his own world, and he realized suddenly that he worried about Jack just as much as he worried about Randall and Lilith. Maybe, even more, considering Jack’s penchant for finding the fastest and most gruesome ways to die. It should have been obvious before. They were a pack, a family, of course he cared about Jack. He had just never been as conscious of it as he was in this moment. 

The doors opened again and Vera returned with a little metal bowl filled with liquid held carefully in her palms. Beside her was Xavier, a set of clothes folded over his arm and a displeased look on his face. “Hamish,” Vera said with carefully controlled fury. “Go find Miss Drake and ensure she hasn’t ingested any more of that… _purple stuff_ , as Jack puts it. I will restore Mr Morton. Alone,” she directed that last bit at Xavier. “Please escort our new friend back to the courtyard.”

The last thing Hamish wanted to do was leave Jack’s side, but he knew that if he disobeyed her, especially in company, that Vera would be very displeased. “Yes, Grand Magus,” he said lowly before bending down and whispering to Jack, “Will you be OK here without me?”

“Go,” Jack groaned, throwing a hand over his eyes. “Before she tears you a new one. I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll see you soon,” Hamish promised as he carefully slid out from under Jack and set him gently on the ground before he stood.

“Oh, and Hamish,” Vera stopped him just as he was about to leave the barn with Xavier in tow. “If anyone decides to do anything… untoward or uncouth, then you have my explicit permission to retaliate in any way you see fit.”

There was an underlying threat there, and both Vera and Hamish knew what she was asking of him without the words being said. _If they do something you don’t like, you may rip them to shreds._ “It would be my pleasure,” he replied, and he felt Tundra roil in his chest in pure, unadulterated approval.

**Author's Note:**

> Is there any news on a season three yet? Apparently it's taking usually long, especially considering season two renewal only took a few days. I'm very worried. Someone on a YouTube comment said it was cancelled but I haven't found any information about it either which way. I've had Netflix open for days now slowly rewatching the series hoping that the number of rewatches will help improve it, and I think I'm on my like, 7th total rewatch of both seasons. And really, I know what happens throughout the season just because I couldn't help myself, but I'm really only up to s2e2!! Gosh!!


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